Influential US Senator John Kerry who heads the Congressional Committee responsible for American foreign policy has said that Pakistan's President,Army chief and the ISI are showing encouraging signs of transforming and taking the terrorists head on. I have found that President (Asif Ali) Zardari is very committed to trying to increase the accountability and to move in these directions (taking actions against terrorists), said Kerry,Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was intervening at a round-table debate on Afghanistan at the US Senate when one of the speakers said that ISI needs to be brought under civilian government's control. Kerry,who lost to George W Bush in 2004 presidential elections,was recently in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I also find that both (ISI Chief) General (Ahmad Shuja) Pasha,and (Pak Army Chief) General (Ashfaq) Kayani,are likewise committed, Kerry said. In my conversations with Admiral (Mike) Mullen and with other players,there is a sense of some transformation - of a willingness to engage in some transformation, Kerry said. Former Australian Special Forces commando and counter- terrorism adviser to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,David Kilcullen,had said that various attempts have been made to bring the ISI under government control but it's just too powerful for civilian politicians to break it up. So,we need to really encourage the Pakistani civilian politicians to do that,and we need to hold - this is my second point,we need to hold some of the assistance we give to Pakistan conditional on its performance in dealing with the Taliban, Kilcullen said. We pay around about USD 120 million a month in something called 'Coalition Support' funds,which are supposed to go toward helping (Pakistan) control the Taliban and deal with al-Qaeda,and a variety of other things, he said. Historically,it hasn't actually been spent primarily on that sort of task. We need to really start putting some conditionality on that and saying it's not just a blank check, he suggested. We do have enemies (in Pakistan) in the ISI,we have enemies in the national security establishment,we have enemies in the military,and we have other people who are neither our friends nor our enemies but they're just following their own interests that intersect badly with ours, he said. However,differing on the issue,Kerry said the Pakistan Army is taking on the bad folks who are numerous including the networks of Hakani and Baitullah Mehsud, besides the Taliban and al Qaeda in the western part of the country. There's a battle going on in Peshawar now or had been,as you know, Kerry said,adding these are encouraging efforts. I was in Peshawar,which is increasingly more a dangerous place. As we know,the northwest province and Swat are increasingly troubled. So I think there's an understanding here and a significant effort to try to focus on the kinds of things that you just talked about,but we need to tweak that bill (Kerry-Lugar bill) more effectively and I hope that we're going to be able to do it so that we can put it together to have the kind of accountability you've just talked about, Kerry said.
